In preparation for a Saturday morning book signing with Newt Gingrich, the bookstore printed numbered cards for the first 500 people looking for an autograph from the former House speaker and Republican presidential candidate. The store gave out its first card at 8 a.m. on Black Friday–27 hours before Gingrich was scheduled to arrive–and ran out before he stepped in the door. After that, the Gingrich fans had to fend for themselves.

Gingrich spent the two days after Thanksgiving on a campaign swing through Naples, Florida, a wealthy conservative stronghold in the Sunshine State that was, to say the least, extremely welcoming.

After his marathon Books-a-Million autograph session on Saturday, I sat down with Gingrich in a quiet corner of the store where we talked about his run for the White House and a wide range of issues.

…snip…

Three Republican presidential candidates have shown an openness to handing over control of drugs and medical marijuana to the states. Would you continue the current federal policy making marijuana illegal in all cases or give the states more control?

I would continue current federal policy, largely because of the confusing signal that steps towards legalization sends to harder drugs.

I think the California experience is that medical marijuana becomes a joke. It becomes marijuana for any use. You find local doctors who will prescribe it for anybody that walks in.

Why shouldn’t the states have control over this? Why should this be a federal issue?

Because I think you guarantee that people will cross state lines if it becomes a state-by-state exemption.

I don’t have a comprehensive view. My general belief is that we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy. And that we should recognize that the Mexican cartels are funded by Americans.

Expand on what you mean by “aggressive.”

In my mind it means having steeper economic penalties and it means having a willingness to do more drug testing.

…snip…

In 1981, you introduced a bill that would allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. What has changed?

What has changed was the number of parents I met with who said they did not want their children to get the signal from the government that it was acceptable behavior and that they were prepared to say as a matter of value that it was better to send a clear signal on no drug use at the risk of inconveniencing some people, than it was to be compassionate toward a small group at the risk of telling a much larger group that it was okay to use the drug.

It’s a change of information. Within a year of my original support of that bill I withdrew it.

Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced a similar bill almost every year since.

You have to admit, Ron Paul has a coherent position. It’s not mine, but it’s internally logical.

Speaking of Ron Paul, at the last debate, he said that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. We’ve spent billions of dollars since President Nixon and we still have rising levels of drug use. Should we continue down the same path given the amount of money we’ve spent? How can we reform our approach?

I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.

Because, if you light up a doobie, your children should starve, and you should lose your house. By the way, since Congress gets paid by the federal government, they should all be peeing in cups before they’re allowed to pick up their paychecks, right?

(The interview is about a lot of different subjects, and you can read it all at the link.)

Also, I’d love to see you do a post on Michele [spit] Bachmann’s campaign to sell books (15 ppl showed up for signing in Davenport; ~ 100 in Des Moines; various sources, incl. dumpbachmann.com). I return you to your previously scheduled topic.

i don’t want to edit your previous comments, latte, because they made me laugh. it was so cute!

i haven’t done a botox batshit bachmann poster in a while, so you may get your wish. i’ll have to look around and see what i can do. thanks for reminding me about dumpbachmann. i haven’t visited there in a long time.

Hi Sedate Me. Nice to see you over here again. I apologize for not capitalizing my comments. I always use capitals in the posts, but my comments are typed by my alter-ego who thinks she’s ee cummings. :wink: Actually, I have problems with my hands and arms (carpal tunnel and some nerve issues), so it’s a bit painful to hit that caps lock key. If I capitalize my replies to you, will you forgive me? After all, it could be worse. I COULD TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPS!!!

Thanks. Like I said, these “high” standards of mine are a compulsive thing I can’t control. I know it’s somewhat rude to come in and nag you about it. Sorry. I’ll try my best to confine it to the odd poke in the ribs over at Mr Mills place. (Caps lock? Use the shift key. It’s a bigger target and you only have to hit it once a sentence. Less repetition.)

But it could be worse, I could be one of those compulsive “self-massagers”.

No worries, Sedate Me. I don’t insult easily. I understand that it can be quite annoying when someone doesn’t use capitals. Usually, my comments are pretty short, so my grammatical incorrectness is not as egregious as when I start bloviating paragraph after paragraph.

I actually meant the shift key, not the caps lock. Another brain fart (they’re becoming quite a regular thing). That one slight turn of the fingers can be amazingly painful sometimes, but I’ll try to behave when I respond to you. When it comes to my Raisinettes…

Dope=Grinch-same as it always was! There’s not a major problem in California that $400 an ounce dope won’t curtail. And up! Bigest problem is rip-off of growers and way too much gunplay and death. There is no problem here that ethyl alcohol can’t solve. To quote the great philosopher H. Jay Simpson: “Drinking…the cause of and the solution to all problems!”

Newtie believes it’s all about freedom. Freedom for hypocritical opportunistic bloviators like him, who have a history of using their own family as props that they can dispose of without batting an eyelash, to legislate the use of marijuana under the guise of protecting families. I’m sure it makes sense to someone somewhere, I’m just not sure how many substances one would have to ingest over a long period of time to actually believe any of this crap.

it’s not about anything like that. it’s simply pandering to the rightwing who still lives in the 1950s and thinks pot is the root of all evil. i wouldn’t be surprised if the big booze and big pharma companies are donating to him either. if pot growers were paying him to lobby…i mean, be an historian, then he’s be singing from the rooftops how pot should be legal.

I think the California experience is that medical marijuana becomes a joke. It becomes marijuana for any use. You find local doctors who will prescribe it for anybody that walks in. – Newt

Just like any other drug doctors prescribe. They hand out pills like candy these days and nobody gives a shit. Prozac for dogs? Riddle-in for toddlers? Horse tranquilizers for Jacko impersonators? It’s all cool as long as it bumps a company’s stock price.

At work, I got my hands on something I legally shouldn’t have seen. It said at least 3 employees in this pissant little company were billing the health plan for more legally dispensed Oxy in a month than the recommended maximum monthly dosage and costing more than street value of weed I’ve smoked in my entire life. (For any border guards or DEA agents eavesdropping, that last amount is zero and was only used for comedic purposes.)

The irony is that a lot of people who really need strong drugs for chronic pain can’t get them. When pain is really, really bad, narcotics don’t get you high. It just takes the edge off the pain. However, so many doctors are so afraid of getting busted for prescribing too many narcotics, so you’re shit out of luck. There’s also the matter of being able to afford them if you can get a prescription. Of course, if you have enough money, you can shop around for doctors as much as you like or even rent one for your very own like jacko did, at his own peril. All that would be solved with the legalization of marijuana (as well as a lot of the problems at the border), but that might mean big pharma might lose a few nickels in profits, and that can’t be allowed to happen.

Damn straight. They’re easy to get if you’re a junkie. Harder to get if you’re just in pain. And even here in Canada, prescription drugs are way too expensive. They’re almost half as expensive as in America.

As for The Herb, at this point, keeping it illegal only keeps the prisons full, the cops crashing down doors and the bikers driving Benzes. It isn’t dissuading anyone from self medicating in this miserable world. If the cops did a door-to-door search of any suburban crescent, they’d probably find enough weed to keep Cheech & Chong going for a year.

Newt’s solution seems to be to do more of the same and expect a better result. (Hey, isn’t that the definition of insanity?) I suggest building the Mexican Wall, the Canadian Wall and have a flotilla patrolling the coasts in order to turn all of America into a prison. That will be much cheaper than Newt’s plan and will achieve the same result.

You’re absolutely correct. Legalizing pot would put a dent in all the industries the rightwingers love–private prisons, Big Pharma, and Big Booze. People will self-medicate if they’re desperate enough, and they’ll use whatever they can afford.

Odd that so many who are so against pot ( medicinal or otherwise) have no problems with tobacco, which is waay more harmful and waay more prevalent.
Oh,yeah…… dope farmers aren’t people…..cigarette manufacturing corporations ARE.